Another Fishy Rescue

Someone replied to my ad a couple days ago about having 2x 10g tanks with about 100 Silver Mollies + plants that needed to be given up.

I arrived this morning to collect the fish/plants/tank/accessories/etc as he wanted it all gone. Ya..... Looks like the tanks hadn't been cleaned in 6months+ Maybe even a yr... the plants were healthy so I'm sure they were keeping the fish healthy. The fish look fine, & there are sooooo many fry!!! Took me a good 30 mins to drain the tanks & catch all the fish.

When I got home I threw out the tanks. They were so dirty I had NO interest in trying to clean them. I kept the hoods, as I can use those with my hoodless tanks. If I ever need a new 10gal tank I can easily get one for free or for 20.00 if I had to buy it new... so cleaning those nasty ones wasn't worth it at all.

For a temp setup all the fish & plants are in a 10g with clean water from my 90gal & a little from their filthy one (didn't want to put the fish or plants into shock).

The guy gave me a lot of fish food too. Its enough to feed all the fish I have for almost 1yr if not more.

Sadly they tanks/plants are heavily infested with snails (long pointy shells), so the plants & fish cannot be moved into my 90gal any time soon. What I plan to do is leave the fish & plants as is for 1~2 weeks (the poor things are stressed enough). Then I'll take the plants out & will care for them in pails with proper lighting. I'll move the larger Mollies into a tote with 100% snail free water, no plants, no gravel, no nothing & I'll put in some loaches. The loaches will eat & kill any & all snails. So after a couple of months that tote should be snail free. Sadly any fry born will be eaten too, but it's the only way to clear the Mollies of infesting my 90g tank with snails.

I'll also be putting a couple of loaches in with the plants to help clear teh plants of snails. This tank will be harder to clear of snails, but I know with regular water changes (100%, then filled with water from the 90g) the plants should be snail free in a few months time. Zebra Loaches should do the trick :)

Once all the fish & plants are clear of snails, I want to put 90% of the plants into the 90g & the rest into the 10gal. I'm hoping the 10g will turn into a mini planted tank where I can house fancy shrimp, fancy snails, & Dwarf frogs. It'll be fish free.

Oh & the amount of plants that I picked up today is more then enough to fill my 90gal tank!! There are soooooooooooooooooooooo many plants!!!!! 2~3 species of plants from what I could see. I'm nearly positive it's only 2 species of plants, but 1 looked a little different.

I'll take pics of the progression... but wont have any until as early as tomorrow

I'll be looking forward to the pictures! It's all very interesting to me and I plan on volunteering at the aquarium back home to learn even more about fish!

I did more research on the snails & they are the good kind of snail (non plant/fish killing kind)... so I'm not worried about them anymore.

So far I've lost about 3 fish, which is really low as I was expecting about 10~20 to die from the stress.

The fish have been medicated & salted & they all look very healthy. The plants are still healthy looking & the fry seem to be fine as well.

I wasn't able to keep the 10g clean with all the fish in there.. I was hoping with low feedings the water would last longer... but it wasn't... so I moved them all into the tote today with the plants. So far they have adjusted very well & quickly. They are all eating & are swimming about.

A friend is interested in a handful of them for her 120g. but isn't able to take them until her baby is released from the hospital after recovering from her cardio surgery (everything went fine). So in about 10+ days some lucky fish will have a new home :)

A handful will be going into my 90g tank with all the plants. The babies will stay here with me until they are large enough to be rehomed without other fish eating them.

I should have time to take pics tomorrow, if not, then it'll have to wait until after V-day, as I have HUGE V-day plans so I've been crazy busy with that all week.

These fish have landed themselves in a good home, bless you for caring about and for them!